Monday, February 10, 2014

(Real) Symbiosis MBA Interview Experience

To secure an admission into Symbiosis University and its related B-Schools , one needs to appear for their entrance exam called SNAP. The process includes registering and paying for SNAP exam, appearing for the exam , results after a month , and getting calls from institutes of which you clear the cut-offs.

I had my stay at cousin's place in pune. Got up early in the morning and drove to kirkee from Kondhwa.

I did not have the photocopies of some of the documents and so got them photocopied and rushed for documents verification. The student co-ordinators were mostly girls and they were quite co-operative ;).

All the aspirants were divided in the group of 8 and a First year student was leading the group. He answered all the queries we had over there. The guy was quite friendly and so i tried to extract as much information about the panels , chances , how to impress them , panels' nature , type of questions , from him as possible.

After an introductory session and breakfast , we had the WAT (Written Aptitude Test). An answer sheet consisting of 8 pages was provided and a question paper. The question paper had 2 questions as follows :

(1) "Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world" - Nelson Mandela.

Write an essay on the above topic in 650 words.

(2)

Interprete this image and write down all your interpretations explaining each of them .

Answer : The group leader had told be to be creative in this question and so i wrote various shades regarding this image as in

After the WAT , we again had a breakfast and I waited for an hour before my turn came in for a PI (Personal Interview / Personal Interaction). My turn arrived and the group leader asked 3 copies of my resume to give it to the panelists. After 15-20 seconds , I entered the interview - room.

Panel consisted of :

(P1) 42-45 aged person with a moustache like kejriwal from industry , sitting on the left.

(P2) 58-60 aged person looked like professor and had a firm attitude.

(P3) 40-42 aged person with specs and moustache and a marathi look.

(M) Me

Interview :

M : Morning Sir (Looking at all of them)

P2 : Good morning Mitesh , please have a seat

P2 : (After a pause) So Mitesh , quickly tell me something about yourself which is not on this resume.

M : (This was a very basic question and so i had prepared for it) Told everything about born and brought up , folded the whole academics in a single sentence , told about the engineering and extra-curriculars , my final year project at Mt. Abu and stressed more on the work experience.Ended my sentence with culture at my company and the boss.

P2 : So , who is your Boss ? How is he , friendly or effective ?

M : Described about the boss' journey and told about his characterstics.

P2 : You are going to do an MBA and you would be the boss after a few years , so what would you prefer ?

M : I would act according to the nature of the employees under me . If they are of the nature that they would not work untill they have deadlines nearing them , I would give them pseudo-deadlines and be more on the stricter side but if the employees are self-responsible , a friendly nature would suffice.

P1 : So , Mitesh you have had leadership positions at many places , so what do YOU think are the qualities in YOU which makes you lead the people.

M : Sir , i need around 30 seconds to frame my answer . Took my time and framed the answer .

Told about the roles during school , roles during engineering , roles during cultural fests and robotics and professional life.Covered how did i do it , problems i faced and things i thought you should act in particular situations for betterment of the whole group. This went on for 4-5 minutes. and at last i told him in a rhetoric way that I hope Sir you are able to get the overall picture to which he nodded positively.

P2 : Okay so mitesh , suppose if there is an unethical project but it is moral. That project would benefit your firm a lot. Would you participate in that project ?

M : After thinking for a while , No sir i would never compromise with ethics , BUT i would not stop them for executing the project. I would somehow step out of the project citing certain specific reasons to which the manager cannot oppose (he smiled to this response). Sir can i explain this with a real-time example.

P2 : Ohh please please go ahead

M : Described the incidents about the problem of "shadow resources" during a foreign clients project which is unethical but moral (Working professionals would understand this practically).

P2 : seemed satisfied

P2 : Looked towards P3

P3 : So Mitesh , Why do you want to do an MBA ?

M : Explained the reasons (I had prepared this pretty good)

P2 : What after MBA , companies you are targeting and general stereotype questions.

M : Had them quite good

P1 Interrupted

P1 : You have mentioned that you have entrepreneurial plans in future ? Can you explain ?

M : Sir if you notice it in detail , there is an 'IF' at the starting point. So if the conditions are met and if life goes according to my plans , then i WOULD think of it as I have worked in start-ups and i can see a lot of benefits on all the front.

P1 : What kind of benefits ?

M : I knew he wanted to hear something related to society. So i started with that it provides more job opportunities for fellow citizens , helps in building the economy , reverses brain-drain and stopping students from leaving india just due to lucrative packages as startups in india are cash flows if they go good. And ater all you have enough money at the end of cycle. Described about www.Onlineprasad.com as i had experience as a content writer in it.

P1 : seemed satisfies and smiled.

A silence prevailed for 4-5 seconds and all of them looked to one another.

P2 : Thanks Mitesh and all the best for your future.

M : Thank You SIR. Smiled. :)

Came out of the room with a positive feeling.

While I was leaving the center , I passed P2 while he was having a smoke. Stopped there are he asked me about my personal details. Told about Junagadh , my father , my business. I politely questioned him about the quality of interview. He smiled and said "Hope positive beta".